And in a way what is most paradoxical is that I said it all in Ubik years ago! So in a way my exegesis of 2-3-74 says only, "Ubik is true." All I know today that I didn't know when I wrote Ubik is that Ubik isn't fiction. In all of history no system of thought applies as well to 2-3-74 as Ubik, my own earlier novel. When all the metaphysical and theological systems have come and gone there remains this inexplicable surd: a flurry of breath in the weeds in the back alley--a hint of motion and of color. Nameless, defying analysis or systemizing; it is here and now, lowly, at the rim of perception and of being. Who is it? What is it? I don't know.
I ask for 30 years, what is real? And in 2-3-74 I got my answer as if the universe--well, as if my question traveled across the whole universe and came back to me in the form of experienced answers . . . and what I wind up with after 6 1/2 years of studying those experience answers is : a surd. A perturbation in the reality field--an irregularity, a departure from the normal--a tugging or pulling or bending. And that is all. Not even the thing, the perturbing body itself; only its effects on "the reality field." Something out of the ordinary--like I say, a surd.
So what, then, do I know about the nature of reality? That an irregularity can show up in that it points to--something else. Only a sign.
Q: "Ti to on?"
A: Heidegger says, "Why is there something instead of nothing?" To which I ask, "Why does Heidegger think there is something instead of nothing?"
The tug is real and the "reality field" tugged on isn't. So that which is genuinely real is pointed to by its effect on the "reality field" (which isn't real) but what it is that is doing the tugging I have no idea. 631-32
I ask for 30 years, what is real? And in 2-3-74 I got my answer as if the universe--well, as if my question traveled across the whole universe and came back to me in the form of experienced answers . . . and what I wind up with after 6 1/2 years of studying those experience answers is : a surd. A perturbation in the reality field--an irregularity, a departure from the normal--a tugging or pulling or bending. And that is all. Not even the thing, the perturbing body itself; only its effects on "the reality field." Something out of the ordinary--like I say, a surd.
So what, then, do I know about the nature of reality? That an irregularity can show up in that it points to--something else. Only a sign.
Q: "Ti to on?"
A: Heidegger says, "Why is there something instead of nothing?" To which I ask, "Why does Heidegger think there is something instead of nothing?"
The tug is real and the "reality field" tugged on isn't. So that which is genuinely real is pointed to by its effect on the "reality field" (which isn't real) but what it is that is doing the tugging I have no idea. 631-32
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